Assignment Description and Instructions: You are asked to refer to Module 1 and reflect on the following topics. Please answer all 3 of the following questions by writing a short essay on each (500 words each), using at least three academic references to support your point of view for each essay.

 a) Consider a research topic of interest to you. When selecting a research approach to this topic, what would you identify as the major strengths and criticisms of the scientific method and each of the three alternative approaches to research discussed in Module 1 (the normative, interpretive and critical approach)? Which approach would you select to address your topic, and why? 

b) A researcher wants to conduct a study to find out how much adolescents know about sexually transmitted infections. To what extent will this study be constrained by legal and/or ethical considerations? What will these constraints be and how will they limit the researcher’s ability to investigate adolescents’ knowledge of sexually transmitted infections? What should the researcher do to protect the human subjects? 

c) Identify two major theoretical frameworks as they relate to your research topic. Explain how these two different philosophical standpoints lead to different methodological (quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods) approaches to the research. Provide examples of how each of the approaches (epistemological and ontological) has contributed to educational research.